Retail, hospital, long-term care and mail-order pharmacies exist to fulfill patient prescription orders. A patient prescription order consists of one or more prescriptions for the patient. In order to fulfill patient prescriptions, the pharmacy will typically stock and manage a large and extensive inventory of pharmaceutical products and other healthcare-related products. Pharmaceutical products include prescription medications, over-the-counter (OTC) medications, nutriceuticals, supplements and other products required to fulfill patient prescriptions or otherwise to meet the needs of customers served by the pharmacy.
Pharmaceutical products are packaged in pharmaceutical product containers. As used herein, pharmaceutical product containers are also referred to simply as “containers”. Pharmaceutical product containers may be any suitable type of package and may include, for example, a bottle, a box, a bag or another container type.
Certain pharmaceutical products are routinely stored in bulk-type pharmaceutical product containers. A bulk-type pharmaceutical product container is a container which stores a quantity of a pharmaceutical product in loose, bulk form. The pharmaceutical product is typically in tablet form. As used herein, the term “tablet” is intended to refer to any solid-form pharmaceutical product including tablets, gel-caps, capsules, spheres, multi-angles and the like. The pharmaceutical product stored in a bulk-type pharmaceutical product container can also include powder or liquid-form pharmaceutical product.
Any amount of pharmaceutical product can be stored in a bulk-type pharmaceutical product container. It is common for a bulk-type pharmaceutical product container to store hundreds of tablets or just a few tablets. Tablets are counted out from the bulk-type pharmaceutical product container in order to fulfill a prescription of a prescription order. A bulk-type container may be used many times to fulfill many prescriptions before all the of the tablets in the container have been used and the container is discarded.
Another type of pharmaceutical product container is a unit-dose storage container. A unit-dose container is a prepackaged single dose or course of a pharmaceutical product, such as a week's course of an antibiotic. The entire unit-dose pharmaceutical product container is provided to the patient by the pharmacy. Unit-dose pharmaceutical product containers are provided in various forms such as a pre-loaded clamshell package, a blister package, a box or a bottle. Articles such as syringes and inhalers may also be stocked in unit form.
A pharmacy may stock and manage hundreds, or even thousands, of different pharmaceutical product containers depending on the size and type of pharmacy.
Pharmacies typically maintain their inventory of pharmaceutical products in storage locations which can include, for example, shelves, drawers, cabinets, racks, carousels and refrigerators. Pharmacy storage locations can be automated or non-automated and can be organized and arranged as modular or non-modular storage systems. Each storage location can be further organized, arranged or divided into storage locations at which separate pharmaceutical product containers are located.
A pharmacy will typically include one or more workstation at which pharmacy personnel perform work required to fulfill patient prescriptions. A workstation will typically include a computer terminal and a work surface for collection, preparation and verification of the articles selected to fulfill prescriptions. The pharmacist may stand or sit at the workstation.
In order to fulfill a prescription of a patient prescription order, the pharmacist will typically receive information at the workstation describing the type and amount of pharmaceutical product required to fulfill each prescription. The pharmacist then walks from the workstation to the storage location of the pharmacy at which the pharmaceutical product container for the pharmaceutical product is stored. The pharmacist selects the pharmaceutical product container from its storage location and carries it back to the workstation. If tablet-form pharmaceutical product is required, the pharmacist can count out the required quantity of tablets from the bulk storage container at the workstation. The tablets are placed in a vial or other container which will subsequently be provided to the patient by the pharmacy once fulfillment of the prescription order is complete. Also at the workstation, the pharmacist can perform any other tasks required to fulfill the prescription order such as verification of the selected product containers or placing a patient-specific label on a unit-dose package. Time and effort is required to select and retrieve the pharmaceutical product container from storage and to return any partially-full container back to storage.
Accurate and efficient pharmacy operation is important. Pharmacy personnel must be able to quickly and efficiently locate the storage location for each pharmaceutical product in inventory and must be able to easily select the correct pharmaceutical product container from the storage location. Pharmaceutical products used most frequently should be stored in storage locations which are most easily accessible to the workstation used by pharmacy personnel to fulfill the prescriptions. The storage locations should also be organized and arranged to maximize the available and valuable storage space at the pharmacy.
And, the pharmacy must manage a potentially large and changing inventory of pharmaceutical product containers required to fulfill the prescription orders. Pharmaceutical product containers are constantly being added to, and selected from, the inventory. The inventory of pharmaceutical product containers will include full containers, partially-full containers and may include multiple containers for the same pharmaceutical product but with different quantities, lot numbers and expiration dates.
Complicating pharmaceutical product container inventory management is the fact that the frequency of pharmaceutical product usage changes and is not static. Demand for pharmaceutical products can change, for example, based on factors such as outbreaks of illnesses (e.g., influenza), seasonal demands (e.g., antihistamines and allergy treatments may be used more frequently in the spring and summer), introduction of generics, and introduction or discontinuation of pharmaceutical products. Pharmaceutical product preferences of local physicians can drive changes in demand for certain pharmaceutical products. The pharmaceutical product container inventory should be managed and changed to meet changing patient and customer demand for the pharmaceutical products and so that pharmaceutical products used most frequently are most efficiently and easily accessible to the pharmacy workstation.
A particular problem confronting pharmacy inventory management is the need to efficiently manage the inventory of partially-full pharmaceutical product containers which are picked from storage and potentially placed back into storage many times to fulfill many different prescriptions. A partially-full container is any container which includes fewer than the allotment of tablets or other pharmaceutical product originally contained in the container. Partially-full containers are commonplace in pharmacy inventories because pharmaceutical products are routinely supplied in bulk-type containers which include an amount of tablets (e.g., 100 to 500 or more tablets) which are intended to be used frequently during a long time period before the container is empty and must be discarded.
Several factors may drive the widespread usage of partially-full containers at the pharmacy. One factor is cost. It may cost less for a pharmacy to purchase a large quantity of a pharmaceutical product in a bulk container. Another factor is the generous return policies of most manufacturers. A pharmacy may receive a full or partial refund for a pharmaceutical product, provided the return is made a sufficient amount of time before the expiration date. Thus, there is a clear incentive for the pharmacy to stock partially-full containers because any unused pharmaceutical product may be returned to the manufacturer. As the frequency of usage of pharmaceutical products at the pharmacy changes, these partially-full containers should also be made efficiently and easily accessible to pharmacy personnel at the workstation.
A further need of a pharmacy is the tracking of pharmaceutical product expiration dates so that active pharmaceutical products are provided to the patient and expiring product can be returned to the manufacturer for a refund.
Yet another problem facing a pharmacy is the need to provide theft deterrence. Pharmaceutical products are valuable, and there is a risk that pharmaceutical product containers, or even individual tablets, may be stolen from the pharmacy. Obviously, discouragement of theft is desirable.
There is a need for a pharmacy workflow management system and method which would address some or all of the foregoing pharmacy needs, which would adapt to changes in the frequency of usage of pharmaceutical products, which would make the most frequently used pharmaceutical products most efficiently and easily accessible to the workstation at which the pharmaceutical products are used by pharmacy personnel to fulfill patient prescription orders and which would generally enable the pharmacy to provide a high level of patient care.